It's not as if I led a deprived childhood, but there were some toys that I desparately wanted as a kid and never got. Of course now that I have kids, I can finally indulge those desires of long ago by getting them the stuff I never had! And who said being a grownup is no fun? Although there are plenty of adults in their 30s and 40s who have no problem in buying themselves toys (or "investing" in "collectibles") more suitable for someone a few decades younger, I always thought the idea was just a little unseemly. This is not to say that I didn't occasionally indulge myself in toys, as anyone who's seen my desk at work will attest.

It's actually kind of funny to look at myself and my fellow parents and to see how we're seemingly immature—call it deferred adulthood—compared to our parents, and in turn to compare them to parents of previous generations. I'm addicted to Mad Men on AMC, and I find it interesting, and even a little frightening, to look at a character like antihero Don Draper in his suits and ties and hats and Coupe de Ville and to think that he's supposed to be around my age, and of course is played by an actor my age, but seems so much older than I, and I'm sure many others, see themselves.

But I digress. One of the toys I always lusted after as a wee one but never got were the various Playmobil figures, vehicles, and accoutrements. Probably at the time they were prohibitively expensive, being European and all. I've always thought their historical toys were especially cool and above all fairly historically accurate. Knights, pirates, Vikings, cowboys, Romans... the varieties are practically endless. I've been buying them here and there for Trevor, and while he wasn't all that interested in them a couple years ago, he recently rediscovered them.

We also found that they can be had fairly inexpensively at Target. You can pick up a two-pack of knights or pirates for $2.99, which isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. Compare to el cheapo McDonalds happy meal toys, which we dispose of by the bagful at the annual mothers' club rummage sale, and you're getting a lot more for your money. Where things get expensive is with the playsets and buildings, which are available in varying styles from the simple to the grandiose. I love the castle with working drawbridge, but for almost $90, it's not something I'm going to run out and buy right now (although I want to). I also noticed they have a Roman amphitheater playset complete with wild animals, chariots, and gladiators. I— I mean my son would really love to get that. Yeah, that's right... it's for him. But that's also close to a hundred bucks.

Playmobil stuff is also exceedingly well made, so perhaps we can consider it something to hand down to the grandchildren, when that time comes. The only problem is with the little accessories that come with the Playmobil people: hat plumes, swords, navigational instruments (for the pirates... really!), etc. They're small, and invariably end up in the mouths of littler kids or in the vacuum cleaner. Just keep an eye out while cleaning the floor, I suppose.

Naturally there are tons of adults out there that collect these things, and I suspect that some of them never had them as kids, either. There are also people with a lot of time on their hands that make stop-motion movies with Playmobil people. Check out Sven Central's Bloody Snow and The Viking Five. They're both pretty funny and amazingly well done, (but not really appropriate for kids).

I can't really imagine Don Draper playing with his kids' Playmobil people, though.